Game Description:Red Faction: Armageddon occurs half a century after the Red Faction resistance freed Mars. The red planet again becomes a battleground as colonists struggle for survival in the underground mines after the surface is rendered uninhabitable. When Darius Mason, grandson of revolution heroes Alec Mason and Samanya, unknowingly releases a long-dormant evil, Armageddon is unleashed on Mars. As settlements are torn asunder, only Darius and the Red Faction can save mankind. The battle will take them to the core of the storm-blasted planet through ice caves and lava flows until they are face to face against the unspeakable threat. Red Faction: Armageddon expands on the critically acclaimed, best-selling franchise with new, groundbreaking challenges. You are humanity’s last hope for survival.

Red Faction: Armageddon Review

Rejoin the Red Faction and step into the mining boots of the grandson of Red Faction: Guerrilla's hero. After a terrorist act of global cataclysm hits, Mars colonists are forced underground where a new threat is unleashed, and only massive property damage can save them!

The Pros

Destruction-focused gameplay is still a ton of fun

Magnet gun is cool

Looks good

The Cons

Run and gun gameplay is way behind the times

Only one multiplayer mode

Far more linear than the last game

Red Faction: Armageddon Review:

It’s time to get your ass back to Mars, and the only thing that’s missing from Red Faction: Armageddon is for the cheesy dialogue to have actually been voice acted by Arnold Schwarzenegger. THQ and developer Volition are bringing players once more onto the breach with more war on Mars, and fans of Red Faction: Guerrilla will be right at home. In fact, there’s very little here that isn’t instantly recognizable and familiar from the last game.

Join the Mason Family Planetary Janitorial Service!

Armageddon keeps right on trucking with the overall Red Faction storyline. Fifty years after the events of Guerrilla, Red Faction soldier Darius Mason (grandson of the last game’s protagonist, Alex Mason) finds himself stuck in the thick of a planet-wide catastrophe. Darius and crew botch an attempt to stop a radical, religious whack job from destroying the terraformer complex that supplies Mars with its breathable atmosphere. The surviving colonists are forced to flee underground, thus returning the series to its cavernous origins.

Five years later, Darius is making ends meet by being a mercenary engineer, living the devil-may-care lifestyle of a snarky and sarcastic, yet sensitive video gaming hero. Unfortunately, he manages to screw the planet—again—by accidentally unleashing a horde of vile, bug-like aliens with a taste for human carnage. So, Darius must break out the guns and sledge hammer to clean up his own mess.

Like Red Faction: Guerrilla, Armageddon is a third-person shooter with a penchant for absurd levels of destruction. Darius has a host of tools to aid him in his quest for structural degradation, including a couple fun new tools. In addition to a really big sledgehammer, the game throws a keen magnetic gun into the mix. This two-stage weapon allows for some truly hilarious property and alien damage. First you target the object you wish to move, and then you hit the trigger again on whatever you want to propel the object toward.

This might mean tagging a building’s support beam and then sending it flying toward a far wall, or it could be targeting two aliens and watching them slap right into each other. The opportunities for gleeful, rampant destruction are strong here, and simply destroying as much stuff as possible in as many ways as possible is the major draw of the entire game. (Although frankly, it might be the only major draw.)

History Repeats Itself

In nearly every other way, Armageddon is largely behind the times. Aside from the magnet gun and a few other new toys, the gameplay is either identical to Guerrilla or a step backwards. Taking the action back into caves actually limits the amount of objects players can tear down, and there’s a stunning lack of vehicle usage as well. The gameplay is also entirely linear this time around, so there’s not even the illusion of an open world or sandbox environment.

The gameplay itself is simple run and gun. Take away the ability to destroy the landscape and Armageddon plays like an old-school arcade shooter. There’s no cover system and Darius has no fancy moves at all. He runs, shoots, ducks, and jumps. There’s virtually no innovation, or even an attempt to match advancements in current third-person games.

The presentation, on the other hand, is definitely improved. While Armageddon isn’t stunning, the visuals are well-done, with excellent character models and decent-looking levels. The aliens all look and act like generic video game baddies though. Their mobility is impressive—they can jump like crazy and cling to walls and ceilings—but are otherwise uninspired. They spit acid/energy, and come in the usual varieties of weak and fast drones, slow and monstrous hulks, and various grades in between, and erupt from spawn points. On the plus side, the game makes liberal use of massive alien creations that actually bolster the strength of any surrounding creatures.

Finally, the only multiplayer included in Armageddon is a cooperative, four-player survival mode that ties into the main story line. It’s a fun and intense coop game, with an impressively large selection of missions. Still, given that Guerrilla managed to provide such an interesting take on standard FPS-style modes, this lack of game mode variety is disappointing.

A Simple Joy… Really Simple

Despite all the complaints leveled at Red Faction: Armageddon, there’s still something intrinsically and hilariously entertaining about the sheer over-the-top fun of just knocking things down. Running up to buildings and hitting them with a big hammer until they fall, or taking them apart piece by piece with the magnet gun is fun. Armageddon may be low-brow and even lazy in its overall design, but the core concept of destruction carries over well. If you’re looking for a shallow good time with plenty of explosions and destruction, you could do worse.

Comments are Closed

RF Guerrilla was my favorites, and still my favorite RF game. Obviously the main point of this whole series within the eyes of both the gamers and the creators is the destruction physics. I love being able to tear buildings/structures down. But my problem with Armageddon is like what Xplay said. It is linear. Destruction physics goes great with a sandbox game. Not with a game that puts you on a path where you can only destroy things along the way. I'm disappointed.

I've never cared for the older RF games but I pre-ordered this after playing the Demo and was very excited. After I got the game home and started playing it, I was extremely happy with the game, SO much better than the old RF games. Very fun and has a decent length campaign. The multiplayer is alot of fun too. So far i've beaten the game twice going on three times. Haven't played it in awhile but that's only because I've been playing Alice, DNF, F3AR, Dungeon Siege 3, and Shadows Of The Damned which are ALL amazing games. Those were all my pre-orders for the month.

This might be a matter of opinion, but "run and gun" seems like a lousy con. is it expected that all shooters use cover based systems now? Also, this doesn't seem like a game you should expect to even have multiplayer so "one multiplayer mode" is a lousy con. Even with those two disagreements I will say the score is fair from what I read of the review.

1 multiplayer? So? If I want a game with hundreds of multiplayer i'd play call of duty. A game should revolve around gameplay and story.. not brainless multiplayer. Have u guys ever looked at the cons and go " are u serious"?

After a couple of hours of playing you kind of get really sick and tired of looking at cave walls and the same 3 enemies over and over again- but its still a blast using all those cool toys. I definitely liked the open world style better.

@jdaprileGreat review Jason. I am definitely interested in trying this game out for myself. I just have one question for you.

How does the linear gameplay affect the game, exactly? I know that with the last game being an open world/sandbox game, it can be a little disappointing that the next game is now linear, but does that necessarily hurt the game?

This game is what trained my trigger finger for the slew of FPS titles out today. I know that the game play mechanics may not be up to the standards of today. But my friends and I spent countless hours slaying bots, passing one of the controllers to the next in line upon death.

The pistol was my favorite weapon for killing bots. You just could not stop running around the levels picking up health packs. Ridiculous amounts of kills with the pistol could be racked up with the pistol.

The original Red Faction is one of my all-time favorite shooters, and a game I always felt was vastly underrated. So, bringing this game back underground wasn't necessarily a bad thing to me. And I second all the people who point out just how bad RF2 was. This series seems to have an identity crisis. Guerilla was a ton of fun, and the core gameplay is still here and still fun--blowing things up. But even Guerilla came dangerously close to beating its one-trick-pony gameplay into the red dust, so Volition had to mix it up somehow. They just went in the wrong direction. As for complaining that the game doesn't use any of the modern third-person action elements such as cover, decent AI, or really any depth to the action, well... You'd think that a developer would strive to constantly improve, enhance, and evolve, but most developers from the 90's who are still around feel painfully stuck in that era.

While I agree I miss the open world environment. where I could just run into a building and try to save the hostages by running through EDF soldiers, then taking my hammer and escaping through the back. Then realizing I'm on the second level of the building and the hostages won't jump. Then I recklessly take my rocket launcher and start shooting everything, the building starts to ca-lapse and a chunk of the building allows me to run down and then I remember I smashed my vehicle into the building for a reason. I quickly get in but the hostages won't they keep fighting. So I get out kill the EDF soldiers get back in, the hostages jump in and I'm on on my way. Come to find out the vehicle was holding up what was left of the building as I drive away nearly dead I look back as the building. I just escaped comes tumbling down.

I can see why they would make it more linear and in a way. I agree with this it gives the game more structure and story but at the same time they give me all these awesome weapons in Armageddon and you can't do to much with then. I would also like to say I miss the the charges you have to place by hand. I see why they would not fit but I still love the feeling of running into a building places as many charges as you can, and blowing the place up. On a final note Red Faction Armageddon is way to short I got it on the 7th played it on the 8th and 9th finished on the 9th also insanity is not that hard. The last thing is it had to much vehicle combat, the one I hated the most was the barge with that turret I could of done better by just running around with my weapons on top of it the rest of the vechicles were not to bad though unless the mine cart is considered a vehicle in which case I had trouble at the part where the mine cart goes up.

I am not surprised AT ALL! When I learned they decided to take it underground I was devastated. RFG was one of the best games this gen in pure fun and enjoyment. I loved just taking a car running over EDF and driving full speed into a building getting out throw some mines and take out 10 guys as the building collapses.

Or running and hiding from EDF has they blow away my cover and having to find a new gameplan knowing being inside does not mean your safe. I also liked the feeling of being on mars and seeing the small sun the landscape the sound design the terra-forming!

Why did they not just take the last game add things like jets, cities, skyscrappers and new weapons! Imagine flying a EDF fighter jet into a huge building. (this is not a 911 reference)

Anyways when they go to the corporate meeting and go over the dismal sales and wonder WHY? Answer: YOU TOOK OUT THE FUN!

They can't make up their minds with this damn franchise. Red Faction 1 was great, but for Red Faction 2 they made it feel like a whole different, yet still ok, game. With Guerrilla they took away the first person perspective, and turned it into an open world game. It was fun, but I missed the first person perspective. And now with Armageddon they completely abandoned the open world, kept the third person camera, and made it linear again.

They just can't make up their minds here. Just start fresh guys. Bring the series back to its roots. Make a first person Red Faction game. Give us focused levels with plenty of room to fight around in. Not open world, but large enough that we don't feel like we are being sucked through a straw. Let us blow up the terrain again, as well as the buildings, and give us a ton of weapons.

Just start over, because I really don't like where this franchise is going.

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